The comment surprised her. “I don’t think you could have predicted this. And I volunteered to come with you, remember?”
“I should have come by myself. I shouldn’t have risked someone else.”
“Isn’t one of the chief rules for recreating in the wilderness not to go out alone?” she asked.
“I should have gone with my original plan to take Connor.”
“Why? Because he’s a man?” Her contented mood had vanished, replaced by weary annoyance.
“No. Because he’s more experienced.”
“What would he have done that I haven’t?” she asked. “Except that he would eat more food and take up more room in the snow cave.”
He nodded. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that.”
She leaned toward him. “What is it about me, exactly, that you don’t like?” she asked. “Because if it’s just the fact that you didn’t personally handpick me for your exclusive team, then you need to get over yourself.” She clamped her lips shut. Had she really said that out loud? Maybe the schnapps had been stronger than she anticipated.
He stared at her, his face flushed. This was it. He was going to fire her, and management would back him up. She’d been out of line—even if what she said was true.
“That’s not it at all,” he said.
She remained silent, waiting.
He leaned forward, hands gripping his upraised knees. “I didn’t want to add you to the avy dog team,” he said. “But it had nothing to do with you, personally. I didn’t want to add anyone else to the team.”
“Why not?”
“Because there are some members of the corporation’s board of directors who think the program is too expensive and unnecessary. There’s a big push to cut costs these days. It’s why Kingdom Mountain was shut down—it wasn’t proving profitable enough.”
“Kingdom Mountain was at a lower elevation than SkyCrest,” she said. “The season became too short to be profitable.”
“Right, but they could have added snowmaking or tried to expand terrain. Instead, they shut it down. Some people at the corporate level are pushing to shut down the avy dog program here, too.”
“And one more patroller and dog makes the program that much more expensive,” she said. “But if they really want to cut the program, one team more or less isn’t going to make that much difference.”
He began rubbing Hunter’s ears. “I know that. I was just grasping at straws. I didn’t mean it personally.”
“Instead of keeping this to yourself, you should tell all of us what’s going on,” she said. “Maybe if we all work together, we can come up with new donors or ways to cut costs or improve our image to the board members.”
“I don’t like to worry people that their jobs are in jeopardy.”
“Except it’s the kind of thing we need to know.”
He fed another piece of wood to the fire. The temperature had dropped and while the front of her was warm enough, cold seeped through her clothing into her back. Shelby lay on her side between Lily and the fire, snoring softly.
“I hate that a child is in danger,” he said. “But if we can find him, it might persuade people who matter that the avy dog program is worth it.”
“Do you think Jackson is the one who made that camp we found?” she asked.
“You know him better than I do. Do you think he could have built that shelter and started that fire?”
“He’s really smart, but it’s hard for me to picture any nine-year-old doing all that. Where would he have gotten the tools, or even the skills to do those things? It’s not like his dad is a big outdoorsman, teaching his kid how to survive in the wilderness.”
“It definitely looked to me like two people had slept in that shelter,” Scott said.
“So Jackson and who else?”
“Another searcher? Everyone in town must know by now that a little boy is missing. Maybe someone decided on their own to go out and look.”
